SINGLETON, Janet Elyse

(Elyse Singleton)

PERSONAL: Born August 30, in Chicago, IL; daughter of John (a bus driver) and Jacqueline (a hair stylist) Singleton. Ethnicity: African American. Education: Attended University of Wisconsin; attended Bennington College summer writing workshops, 1991-93, 1995. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Sewing and refurbishing vintage clothing, photography, traveling, movies made in the '30s, '40s, '50s, and early '60s.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Sally Wofford-Girand, 80 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1101-03, New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Freelance journalist and travel writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bread Loaf writers conference scholarship, 1988; selected literary associate, Rocky Mountain Women's Institute, 1989-90; first place, National Writers Association Short-Story Contest, 1991; first place, Society of Professional Journalist Excellence in Journalism Award for commentary, 1993; Recognition Award in Literature, Colorado Council on the Arts, 1994; projects award, Colorado Council on the Arts, 1995; Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and Colorado Book Award for Fiction, both 2002, both for This Side of the Sky; Best of the Best Award, Rawsistaz Review, for Best Newcomer, 2003.

WRITINGS:

(As Elyse Singleton) This Side of the Sky, BlueHen Books (Denver, CO), 2002.

Contributor to periodicals, including USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Ladies' Home Journal, Essence, Woman's World, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Bella, New Zealand Women's Weekly, and New Zealand Herald.

ADAPTATIONS: This Side of the Sky was adapted to audio by Recorded Books.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A Thousand Horsemen, a novel, for Penguin Putnam.

SIDELIGHTS: Janet Elyse Singleton is a Chicago-born transplant to Denver, Colorado, where she began a career as a freelance journalist. Singleton published the book This Side of the Sky under her middle name, Elyse, and wrote the novel in her Denver apartment, where she told Blackflix.com contributor Tara Casanova she lives like a recluse. Casanova noted that "the only lifestyle differences between Singleton and the Unabomber, who hibernated in a remote Montana shack [is that] Singleton says the bomber mailed more packages, but she had better furniture." On her book's Web site, Singleton says she has enjoyed solitude since she was a child. "I read a lot, wrote spy stories, sewed original fashions for my Barbie dolls, and consumed the standard American-kid dosage of four hours of television daily."

As a student, Singleton envisioned being a psychotherapist, volunteered at local women's counseling centers, and took part in a summer internship program in Denver that treated substance abusers and psychotics. She monitored the behavior of rhesus monkeys at the university's research lab and "watched them run around in circles, not knowing they were giving me a metaphorical demonstration of what my life as an adult would be like. . . . Sadly, I never became a clinician. But I hope to eventually continue my study of psychology. I'd hate to think I tortured all those monkeys for nothing."

Singleton's life took a different turn, however, and as a journalist, she was able to feed her passion for travel and the freedom to pursue another career—as a novelist. In reviewing her debut for Rawsistaz Review online, Tee C. Royal commented that Singleton "has written a story that isn't easily labeled because it is so much more than simply a historical fiction novel." Singleton drew from the experiences of relatives who had grown up in the segregated South and books of history and videos about World War II. Her settings include a German submarine, the Dresden firestorm, a meat-packing plant, and a sugar cane field.

The story traces the friendship of two black women from 1917 until 2000. Lilian Mayfield and Myraleen Chadham are children in Nadir, Mississippi, their families so poor that the Great Depression has no effect on their lives. They have been friends since they shared the same babysitter as infants. Shy, dark-skinned Lilian is the daughter of a woman who shucks oysters and performs abortions on the side. Myraleen, who is light enough to pass for white, is forced by her mother to marry at thirteen and is banished to a sugar cane field when she rebels. When the young women graduate from high school, they become domestics, and Lilian develops a friendship with Kellner Strauss, an Oxford-educated psychiatrist and the son of a Nazi, who was captured by U.S. forces when the U-boat on which he was serving as a medic was destroyed. Now a detainee, he works nearby as a laborer on a work farm. Their attraction results in just a kiss before the two women flee to Philadelphia where they join the Women's Army Corp and begin an adventure that takes them to Glasgow, Scotland, London, England, and Paris, France.

After the war, Lilian moves to Paris and Myraleen stays in Philadelphia. Their loves and lives play out but are never overshadowed by their friendship, which remains the most powerful element of the story.

Christine Wald-Hopkins reviewed the novel for the Denver Post Online, saying that it "doesn't read like a first novel. Singleton . . . knows audience, voice, and how to build a tight, multilayered text. She's produced buff, funny, smart, well-paced writing, with broad appeal. Themes of hate, race, independence, the nature of relationship and 'enemy' appear but don't outmuscle the narrative. Singleton set out to write a book that would be 'both literary and enjoyable.' She's succeeded."

Booklist contributor Elsa Gaztambide wrote that Singleton takes her characters into "a spiraling mix of love, heartbreak, and humor with a novel that is a compassionate and compelling work of fiction written from the heart."

When asked what she has learned as a writer, Singleton told CA: "I have learned that there is no greater form of secular, practical redemption. Writing allows you to use every part of your thoughts, experience, and self as material for your craft. Novel writing, particularly, is existential ecology. It is not that every discouraging or hurtful moment I experienced was worth it—definitely not. But at least, possibly, nothing will have been in vain."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, November-December, 2002, Katia A. Nelson, review of This Side of the Sky, p. 30.

Booklist, September 15, 2002, Elsa Gaztambide, review of This Side of the Sky, p. 209.

Library Journal, September 15, 2002, David A. Berona, review of This Side of the Sky, p. 94.

Publishers Weekly, September 30, 2002, review of This Side of the Sky, p. 48.

Washington Post, October 29, 2002, Jabari Asim, review of This Side of the Sky.

ONLINE

Blackflix.com,http://www.blackflix.com/ (August 26, 2003), Tara Casanova, "A Lyrical Novelist: Elyse Singleton" (interview).

Denver Post Online,http://www.denverpost.com/ (October 27, 2002), Christine Wald-Hopkins, review of This Side of the Sky.

Rawsistaz Review Online,http://www.therawreviewers.com/ (October 14, 2002), Tee C. Royal, review of This Side of the Sky.

Rocky Mountain News Online,http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ (September 21, 2002), Patti Thorn, review of This Side of the Sky.

Star-Telegram Online (Dallas-Fort Worth, TX), http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/ (December 1, 2002), Claude Crowley, review of This Side of the Sky.

This Side of the Sky Web site, http://www.thissideofthesky.com (August 26, 2003).